


The Board

by jayjem_jam



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Gen, NO ONE KNOWS, Stop taunting Lev, are they dating, how do I tag speculative pairing, it's been 10 years and he doesn't have the answer please save him from himself, lev certainly doesn't, or aren't they
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 09:01:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27468403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayjem_jam/pseuds/jayjem_jam
Summary: There is a Board and there is a Note. Nekoma Volleyball Club has one unexplained note, like a bad, terrible inside joke that no one bothers to explain. Ever. It's been ten years, Lev still doesn't have an answer
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	The Board

**Author's Note:**

> this was entirely inspired by my spiral into the fence comics and how king's row has that forbidden board, so i just have to put a nekoma spin on it.

The Board came into being entirely as a joke. Dignified Nekoma didn’t come into being out of thin air - it was the result of Board-induced fear that kept a team of teenage volleyball-playing boys on their toes. There is a vigorous roundtable debate at the start of every year to submit what should and shouldn’t be on the Board. It’s serious business now.

But Way Back, it hasn’t. Nekomata let the kids run buckwild and absolutely insane outside the realm of volleyball, because he believes in healthy development unfettered by undue adult influences or whatever his fancy psychology degree taught him, so a way to reign in the kids fall onto the kids themselves. 

One innocuous day, the  _ senpai  _ of times gone by, almost jokingly, said - “Hey, why don’t we have a Punishment Board? Anyone who says or does anything written on the board does, I don’t know, fifty diving falls.”

By that point, Nekoma had mostly subdued people on the volleyball team. The uproarious rarity belonged to Yaku and Kuroo, two loudmouthed first years who could not stop picking fights with each other and incurring property damage. The Board was proposed as a safety control measure. Noboyuki laughed and said why not.

Word of the Board flowed up into the hierarchy to Naoi and Nekomata. To nobody’s surprise, the old coach told them to go ahead, live their best lives. The Board was put up, submissions made, Yaku and Kuroo were stuck on a loop of diving falls for at least once every practice session. The punishment wore them out, mellowed the acerbic exchange. Nekomata wisely told the team that before they could come together, they have to be apart. 

It wasn’t the Board that brought Yaku and Kuroo together, but it sure abated most of the fighting and yelling. In classes, the trouble two were too busy studying to have a go at each other, and in practice, the apprehension of  _ fifty  _ diving falls kept their tongues in check. Eventually the tension went under, Kuroo and Yaku meshing seamlessly with Nobuyuki, there was minimal yelling involved with every administrative decision. 

The Board is mostly a reminder for the new first years to keep themselves in check, because unlike Nekomata, the older kids are very keen on policing on Board Crimes. Yamamoto groaned about corruption of power in his first year where all he did was challenge Kozume endlessly and got what he deserved per the top left Board note - ‘I can’t be on the same team as he is!’ Yaku gleefully oversaw his diving falls alongside Kozume’s reluctant reduced falls, telling them that this is tradition and the sooner they get over themselves, the sooner everyone could go diving-free.

“We need some sort of tribunal, to plead our cases,” Yamamoto submitted, when he called a team meeting. “Yaku-san -”

Yaku lifted his brow, looking pointedly at the Board where a myriad of complaints made against Yaku were stuck and looming over Yamamoto. 

“We have Kai for that,” Kuroo paused, thoughtfully. He’s the shoe-in for the captain jersey in the coming academic year, but he’s basically running the team as the third-years dipped more into their academics than volleyball. 

“Yeah, so we shouldn’t be punished until we get to plead our cases!” Yamamoto piped up. 

“You’re too soft on them,” Yaku turned to Kuroo. It’s not a complaint, just a blunt assessment. Kuroo grinned, corners twirling upwards, shoulders loose, as Yaku frowned down at him. 

“And you’re too harsh, Yaku- _pai~sen_. Let the kids breathe.”

“Fine,” Yaku cut a glare at Yamamoto. “I reserve full rights in overlooking your punishment, but Kuroo can decide if you’ve committed a Board misdemeanour and you can take your complaints up to Kai, we good?”

Though Nobuyuki and Kuroo  _ technically  _ would ascend into their respective roles of vice and captain, there was no doubt that Yaku held ultimate authority on how things would run around the club. Kuroo sometimes exhibited bleeding heart symptoms, which to Yaku was utterly distasteful, indulging the kids in a Nekomata-esque fashion, and bending to the sway of the team. But Yaku held no reservations about dishing out tough love. He had nagged all the way up to the coaches and down to the first-years. Nobody had the gall to talk back to him. Sometimes, there are less painful ways to depart the mortal realm.

“Fine,” Yamamoto sniffed. “On that note, I’d like to submit a complaint about Yaku-san.”

Kuroo bodily stepped between the inevitable squabble, Yaku’s voice rising as Yamamoto equally pitched his grievances, Kai flagging them down plaintively in the background.

  
  
  


So it is suffice to say that when the new brood of first-years rolled in, they became very acquainted with the Board. They diligently take note of what had been written there and the changes, if any occurred at all. Most of the submissions made sense - to be a team player, they have to be mindful of each other, and that means no trash-talking. No trash-talking to their teammates, no bitching about how the ref was on the other team’s side, no yelling at the coaches. Standard, respectful, team-bonding things.

It’s not until Haiba, who poked and pulled at the upper corner of the Board, came across the Note, that inspired a litany of excited whispering.

Per the Board, they’re not supposed to voice it out loud in the club space.

But outside of the club? It’s free real estate.

“D’you - come on, did you think -” Inuoka trips over his words. 

“Yeah,” Haiba’s eyes are shining. “Heck yeah.”

“I mean - we all suspected,” Shibayama offers shyly. “It did look very sus.”

“Oh, man, fully,” Teshiro concedes. 

Haiba, because he has no sense of self-preservation, proceeds to babble about this to Kozume, who is attached to the hip to Fukunaga. Fukunaga and Yamamoto have this silent  _ thing  _ where you tell something to one guy and bam, the other guy just  _ knows  _ it. Yamamoto might have talked to the vice-captain. By the time the weekends draw to a close and Monday starts, the rest of the club is in absolute titters.

“Lev,” Inuoka nudges the tree child, “you know you’re really in it now.”

“I’m happy to take one for the team,” Haiba valiantly returns. “Wish me luck.”

“For Narnia,” Inuoka cheers on, meaning only half of the cheeriness. 

“I’m going to etch this to the back of my eyes and replay it when I feel down,” Teshiro tells him. 

“He looks like he’s in a bad mood, Yaku-senpai,” Shibayama notes, but Haiba has zero concept of tact and also the urgency of a fourteen-year-old, so he charges ahead and gives voice to the Board Note.

Yaku, who’s nagging Kuroo under a towel over his head, pauses, hand dropping onto the captain’s head. Haiba ogles this.

“Yaku-san, are you and the captain dating?”

  
  


Several things happen.

Yaku blinks. He takes his hand off the captain’s head. He doesn’t start yelling.

“I told you to take off that stupid note, Tora,” he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“I will, when you give me an answer!” Yamamoto yells back, from all the way at the net. 

Kuroo looks up, eyes and mouth vaguely amused. For someone who’s at the centre of daily dating rumours, he is, as always, flattered. 

“What do you think, Lev?” He raises an eyebrow. Haiba steps back, sensing the warning in the question.

“I dunno, captain.” 

“Then there you have it,” Kuroo shrugs, lounging like a predator under Yaku’s puckered frown. “Aww, come on, Yaku, stop looking like that. It’s funny.”

“Don’t come back to practice until I say so,” Yaku instructs the captain. It sounds like a royal mandate to everyone’s ears. “Lev, come on, we’re practicing receives.”

A whine whistles out of Haiba’s throat.  _ “Again?”  _

“Yes,  _ again.  _ Walk faster!”

  
  
  


The Note stays up. The first-years are confused, again and again and again.

“So what is it,” Inuoka wonders, maybe a little pointlessly. 

“I don’t reckon they’ll ever tell us,” Teshiro mutters, defeated. 

  
  
  


“Yaku-san, you’re not my dad, you know,” Fukunaga suddenly says when Yaku is mid-lecture about the importance of sleeping properly. 

“I might as well be,” Yaku frowns. Kuroo swoops upon them like a bird of prey.

“I’ve been signing you all under my name for months, kiddos, so technically you’re all my children.”

Yamamoto covers his ears. “Make it stop! Make it stop!”

Kozume curls into himself, barely acknowledging the Terrible Two hovering over Fukunaga and making him wish he never brought it up. It’s supposedly an arrangement - Kuroo could only bother Yaku and Yaku could only bother Kuroo. No one else.

Daishou came a close second, but that was a complicated break-up and a Note on the Board. No one is tactless enough to mention it.

“That has,” Haiba whips his head to Inuoka. “To be something.”

“Eat my shorts, Lev,” Teshiro groans.

  
  
  


Because they’re terrible and full of pointless curiosity, the team allowed a single round of FMK. It’s a bit confusing when Kuroo and Yaku both choose to marry and kill one another, then shrug and say why not, F-you too.

“I don’t like this game,” Haiba whimpers, curling into a ball of dejection. “Captain, you’re hurting me.”

Kuroo only cackles. Yaku primly allows one unavenged nudge from the gangly captain overlord, before drawing away, lest he starts losing his last straw and they start full on brawling.

“I’m being nice, Lev. Usually I would just straight up murder Yaku.”

“We don’t need to know about your fantasies, Kuroo,” Yaku scrubs a palm over his eyes. “Kenma, did you charge that, it’s beeping at me.”

The second-years descend into chaos as they upend the room to find the Kenma Charger. Haiba is still gnawing at the accumulating questions. Shibayama tells him to give up and move on.

  
  
  


The Note remains. There hasn’t been any need to call upon the Board for a while. As peace and stability is restored to all members, the threat of the Board remains mostly ceremonial.

“You know they don’t police and regulate the Board as rigorously as they used to, right?” Shibayama nudges Haibe who’s scouring the Notes. “It’s just a fun tradition.”

“What isn’t fun is how I’m not in on the joke,” Haiba mumbles, squinting at a crumpled note.  _ He started it! _

“They’re joking around because your reactions are hilarious, man,” Shibayama huffs a laugh. “Give it a rest.”

“No,” Haiba grits. Determined to dig to the bottom of this.

“Suit yourself, buddy,” Shibayama pats his back once. “I’m gonna go get ice cream.”

“With who?” 

“Not telling. Bye, Lev. Have fun!”

  
  
  


Haiba eventually gives up. Years passed, people moved countries, got jobs, got houses, saw friends on live TV playing at the Olympics - the usual athlete things. Nekoma VBC 2012 Edition gets together occasionally, sometimes with Yaku when he’s not snowed in over in Russia. The Captain - who thinks that nickname is great, keep calling me that - gets more indulgent over time, dishing out affection at the team who’s too fond to shake him off for it. It gets lonely sometimes and new friends don’t come as easily. They get it. Plus, he gives great hugs. 

The first time they all tried to pick Yaku off from the airport, who didn’t think all the fanfare was necessary, and then Yaku subsequently picked Kuroo up, bridal sweep a six foot tall man off from his feet, that Haiba’s old curiosity flared up.

“Are they dating?” He mutters to himself. Nobuyuki and Kozume snort in tandem.

“Guess,” Kozume tilts an eyebrow up at him.

“I’m bad at that,” he grumbles back. Nobuyuki laughs.

“Then I guess you’ll never know, hey?”   
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> the nekoma propaganda never stops once I start writing and honestly that's fair all I do is write team fics
> 
> find me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/hozukitofu) and [cc](https://curiouscat.me/jenny_benny)! i have a writing [twitter](https://twitter.com/jayjem_jam) if anyone is interested in more bs or we can just vibe in the void together


End file.
